so as a birthday present to me, as cities burn decided to break up. i won’t hold it against them, though. it’s been a long time coming and i’m surprised to actually see a third release from them.

in any case, i’m sure a lot of you didn’t listen to them or get into them, whether it be the fact that they were pretty heavy and screamed on the first record, their record label affiliation, etc. however, as cities burn were one of the few bands who constantly progressed and who remained consistent in making good music.

son, i loved you at your darkest remains as one of my favorite heavy albums of all time. everything about it was raw and gritty and the best way i could describe the songs would be if mewithoutyou met botch. it’s still my favorite as cities burn album, due to songs like “admission: regret” and “of want and misery,” for example’s sake.

eventually, tj would leave the band, and they broke up. but not for long after decided the dudes wanted to keep the name and continue making music, however different it may be. come now sleep threw a lot of people off guard and a lot of people (myself included) tossed it out the window. i’d keep going back to it though and realized that it was just a more guitar driven rock-sound and it began to grow on me.

there were a couple of songs i could do without, but the band nailed it the third time around with hell or high water, which came out earlier this year. the intricate guitars coupled with cody bonnette’s voice were an incredible combination. they also embraced their southern influences, being from louisiana and all. hell or high water is going to be ranked fairly high on my year-end lists, for the record.

to sum up, i’ll miss this band. they were good at everything they did. i put together a personal interpretation of their greatest hits, which you can download after the jump. it was painstakingly hard to cut songs like “tides” and “wake dead man, wake” from the final list, but i tried to limit myself to 5-6 songs from each albums, clocking in at about 24 minutes per album.

hit the jump and enjoy.

-as grizzlies burn

[DOWNLOAD HERE]

thanks for listening.

-grizzly